The Elephant in the Room: How Our Weight Bias Harms Us

How many times have you sat in a circle of people who believe they are devoted to making the world a better place and yet the conversations about bodies and health devolve into judgment, shame and blame? Weight bias, overt and often unnamed, runs amok between us. Bias lives in words that pathologize certain bodies, like "obesity" or "overweight"; it expands when we believe we know the solutions to "help" change another person's size and collude with body shame when we offer advice; and it flourishes when we apologize for the food we are eating, discuss it as "indulgence" or talk about how we are going to "make up" for it later.

Weight bias also shows itself every single time we sell weight loss and body change to one another despite the fact that data doesn't support a focus on weight, size and shape to address health. Sadly, this is even happening at some eating disorder treatment centers who are beginning to add "weight management" to their list of services. Health care professionals, healers, coaches, and fitness professionals are missing the boat when they make assumptions about a person's health based on size. After a collective 30+ years working in the eating disorder field, we want you to know you that these conversations aren't doing anyone any favors and are not healing, nor are they health promoting. They just reinforce the culture's narrow standards of beauty.

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